The present invention relates to a radio-frequency (RF) coil, an RF signal transmitter-receiver, an RF signal receiver, and a magnetic resonance imaging system. More specifically, the present invention relates to an RF coil, an RF signal transmitter-receiver, an RF signal receiver, and a magnetic resonance imaging system which are used to image the inferior abdomen of a human body through magnetic resonance.
In a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, an object of imaging is transported into a bore of a magnet system, that is, an imaging space in which a static magnetic field is created. Magnetic field gradients and radio-frequency magnetic fields are applied to the object of imaging, whereby spins in the object of imaging induce magnetic resonance (MR) signals. An image is reconstructed based on the received signals.
The radio-frequency magnetic field is applied in the form of RF pulses. The application of RF pulses may be referred to as transmission of an RF signal. The magnetic resonance (MR) signal is received in the form of an RF signal. An RF coil is used to transmit or receive RF signals.
The RF coil may be dedicated to transmission or reception or used in common for transmission and reception. The RF coils dedicated to reception and transmission respectively will therefore have various shapes conformable to regions to be imaged. One of the RF coils is an RF coil used to image the prostate. This RF coil is designed to be a saddle coil that sandwiches the inferior abdomen of an object antero-posteriorly.
The prostate is located at the lowermost position in the inferior abdomen. Despite the use of the foregoing RF coil, an image satisfactorily reflecting a high signal-to-noise ratio cannot be produced all the time.